While Levinson did not say much about the shuttering of his company – he notably did not refer to the NSA, for instance – he did say he intended to mount a legal challenge.

“We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Levinson wrote. “A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.”

He continued: “This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.”

Facebook pays low-wage foreign workers to delete certain content based upon a censorship list. For example, Facebook deletes accounts created by any Palestinian resistance groups.

Digg was caught censoring stories which were controversial or too critical of the government. . .

Many accuse Youtube of blatant censorship.

Reddit – the 133rd most popular website worldwide on the Internet – is also censoring.

I’m not talking about censoring specific websites (For example, I was informed today that Reddit’s News category censors all stories from this website. But that’s just an example). I’m talking about censoring entire categories of news media.

To admirers, the hacktivism trend reflects the increased importance of technology in more and more aspects of life. The net is now democratising both legitimate political expression and hacking in the same way it once democratised media, allowing anyone to blog or publish an electronic book.
But others, including the companies that have lost business due to web outages or been robbed of customer information by hacktivists, believe Anonymous sets a dangerous precedent. “Motivation-wise, I think these guys are on a massive power trip. There is definitely some criminal element,” says Karim Hijazi, founder of tech security start-up Unveillance, which had its internal e-mails published by hackers with Lulz Security (commonly known as LulzSec), an Anonymous offshoot.